Connecting your bank and credit cards (Plaid)
Live transaction feeds through Plaid: connect a bank, map each account to the ledger, and let transactions arrive in the review queue on their own.
Banking → Connections.
Before you can connect. Bank connections go through Plaid, a service set up for the whole installation. If Connect a bank is not offered, it is not set up yet; statements can always be imported under Banking → Imports in the meantime.
Connecting a bank. Connect a bank opens Plaid Link, which runs the bank's own login inside Plaid's window — your bank credentials never touch IntuBu. When it finishes, the connection and its accounts appear here unmapped.
Nothing syncs until you map it. For each bank account, choose which ledger account it feeds, or create one. A checking account must feed a bank account and a card must feed a credit card account — the sign convention depends on it — and two bank accounts can never feed one ledger account.
How transactions arrive. Plaid tells IntuBu when there is something new (the webhook), IntuBu also pulls every six hours as a safety net, and Sync now pulls on demand. Every line goes through the same path as a file import: exact duplicate detection on the bank's own id, the fuzzy "possible duplicate" flag, your rules, and the review queue. A pending charge that settles is updated in place; one the bank withdraws is excluded, never deleted. A line you have already categorised is left as you decided and gets a note if the bank later changed it.
When a bank needs you. Banks periodically require a fresh login, and consent can expire. The connection shows Reconnect needed or Consent expiring, owners get a notification, and Reconnect runs Link in repair mode without re-mapping anything. Revoked at bank means the customer removed access on the bank's side; connect again from scratch.
Disconnecting removes access at Plaid (so it stops being billed) and deletes the token here. Transactions already imported stay in your books.
No Plaid? Banking → Imports takes OFX/QFX, QIF and CSV exports from any bank. OFX and QIF need no column mapping.